In a world in which 1 in 9 people is chronically hungry, we face the challenge of feeding an additional 2 billion mouths by 2050. This is not news, especially to the companies already innovating in crop science, livestock growth, water efficiency and supply chain distribution, to mold a more productive and efficient global food system.
“Sustainability” in its many definitions is key to the future of food. Of course, we want to sustainably meet the nutritional needs of Earth’s growing populace without wrecking our ecosystem. Biotechnology is a key tool to this end; for example, we may soon have commercially available hamburgers grown from stem cells that could reduce the need for resource-intensive livestock.
But the concept of sustainable food encompasses more than simply producing enough to eradicate hunger. Agribusiness and other food companies should consider other aspects of sustainability and intersecting demands up and down the food value chain, as experts discussed at The Atlantic Food Summit last month in Washington, D.C. There are opportunities for companies and social entrepreneurs across sectors to contribute to a truly sustainable food system through marketing responsible consumer brands, supporting family farms, and expanding community markets.
Building up sustainable brands
Consumer brands are a key vehicle for both educating people about sustainability and creating more robust value chains. The millennial generation, especially, has high expectations for the environmental and social bona fides of the brands they buy.
Honest Tea has been a trendsetter in bringing sustainability into the mainstream food channel. The bottled beverage company recently struck a deal to sell its organic and Fair Trade certified beverages in Wendy’s restaurants—not a typical hot spot for diners interested in sustainable foods.
But Honest Tea’s co-founder and “TeaEO” emeritus Seth Goldman said at the Food Summit that the “halo effect around organics” made his company’s products appealing to the fast-food chain, and the partnership revenue allows Honest Tea to purchase more than one million additional pounds of organic ingredients.
Goldman has long defended the acquisition of Honest Tea by the Coca-Cola Company, arguing that only a giant multinational with global distribution could enable his small, mission-driven beverage brand to scale its impact. Case in point: Goldman says when Coca-Cola’s economies of scale allowed Honest Tea to save two cents per bottle in manufacturing costs, Honest Tea turned around and invested half of those savings back in the communities and farms from which it sources ingredients.
Honest Tea has become a $170 million brand not in spite of its commitment to a sustainable food system, but because of it. Though Goldman noted that the “consume” part of the consumer economy denotes destruction and the opposite of sustainability, he says that our challenge is to do "the best we can to reconcile that contradiction".
Ensuring a future for farms
“No farms, no food,” says a popular bumper sticker. There is also a corollary—“No farmers, no farms”—that points to a worrisome trend for the future of food. Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows that the average American farmer is nearly 60 years old, and only 6% of farmers are younger than 35.
But far from a quaint way of life now fading out of fashion, family farms are big business. Walmart and Chipotle source locally from small growers where they can. Clif Bar & Company, which prioritizes organic ingredients in its products, is partnering with the National Young Farmers Coalition to lobby for legislation that will incentivize more college graduates to become farmers.
John Boyd, president and founder of the National Black Farmers Association, adds that a lack of access to credit is holding back many millennials and people of color from agricultural careers. For financial institutions, this represents a sizable opportunity to invest in the future of our food system.
Factory farms provide much of the efficiency we need to continue feeding the planet. But consumer choice and environmental sustainability depend on a diversified agricultural sector that includes small farms growing specialty crops, as well as urban farms that are opening up a new economy by putting city-dwellers back in touch with the earth.
Expanding access and affordability
The movement toward “local, sustainable” food is often guilty of appealing to yuppies and alienating everyone else. Trendy farm-to-table restaurants that fetishize local foods have become ripe for parody, as proven by a fake café in Providence, R.I., that generated real buzz before being revealed as an art project.
But companies should know there is a whole spectrum of market possibilities between letting an urban food desert languish and building a pricey Whole Foods Market. Scaling up regional food systems can and should benefit all socioeconomic classes.
Ashoka Fellow Mischel Nischan is a gourmet chef who has branched out into making the food system responsive to more people through his social enterprise Wholesome Wave. Nischan’s experience in expanding direct-to-consumer farmers markets and enabling lower-income consumers to patronize them using government nutrition benefits has taught him that food access and education must be linked to affordability.
In 2014, Wholesome Wave’s network comprised more than 5,600 farmers participating in 600 direct-to-consumer markets. The organization leverages these powerful connections between people and their food to push for better nutrition and public policy. “If you provide affordability, people will self-educate,” he said at the Food Summit. “Lower-income consumers know a lot more about food and are demanding more from food than we give them credit for.”
People everywhere are demanding more from their food—in how sustainably it was produced, where it came from, what it tastes like and how it contributes to our health. In addition to producing more food overall, companies must respond holistically to these interconnected demands if we are to shape a sustainable food system that serves everyone.
